


Bait Your Hook With Care

by Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Dreams, FIshing Superstitions, Faintly Implied Zoscar, Fishing, Future Fic, Gen, Mild spoilers up to episode 182
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-17 03:29:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29586564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending
Summary: “Sasha,” Zolf says as he casts the line into the water.“Yeah?”“What? No, I— It’s an old fishing superstition. You— you name your bait after someone you care about, right? And if that person cares about you too, you’ll catch what you’re after."---Zolf does a bit of fishing and dreams about an old friend.
Relationships: Sasha Racket & Zolf Smith
Comments: 8
Kudos: 34





	Bait Your Hook With Care

“Sasha.”

“Yeah, boss?”

Zolf gives a little huff and goes back to baiting his hook. “Not your boss anymore,” he says as he casts his line into the water. He’s caught enough fish for dinner tomorrow night, but a few extra won’t go to waste, not with all the people who’ll be there. Besides, it’s a beautiful day for fishing, and he has excellent company. He looks over to Sasha, who’s stretched out in the shadows on the riverbank next to him, hands behind her head, eyes closed. She looks completely, utterly relaxed… and Zolf has no doubt that if lad or a bloke suddenly popped out from behind a tree, Sasha would be able to put a knife in their chest before she even got to her feet.

“Old habits, yeah?” There’s a smile in her voice. There’s one on her face too, if you know how to look for it, if you can look past the scars. The slightest upturn to the left corner of her mouth, the tiniest squint to her eyes. A warm breeze ruffles her hair, and for the first time Zolf notices the odd little white patch that seems to be growing in funny. When had she gotten that?

“The— the kids— the ones we rescued after— after everything. The first time one of them called me ‘mum,’ I—“ Sasha shifts, sitting up, leather jacket creaking as she wraps her arms around her knees. “It sounded wrong. ‘Boss,’ though, that was easier. I could be their boss.”

And that’s when Zolf remembers that Sasha died over a thousand years ago, if he wants to be technical (he doesn’t), or nearly three years ago now, if he counts the day Oscar had read Sasha’s letter out loud. Zolf had left the room once he had realized what Oscar had held in his hands. He could walk away right now, if he wanted.

The fishing pole twitches in Zolf’s hands and he turns his attention to the water, waiting to see if there’s truly a fish on the line.

“So. I’m dreaming, then?” He tries to keep the disappointment out of his tone. After all, it doesn’t mean that the Sasha he’s speaking to now isn’t really her, he knows better than most that there’s an afterlife, after all. It’s just, for one moment, he had forgotten she was gone.

“Well, yeah,” Sasha says, as if it’s obvious. “I mean, I am too. Sleeping’s more enjoyable when you don’t _need_ to do it.” She chuckles. “Don’t have to worry you’ll wake up with a knife at your throat, or someone running in with an emergency or anything. Can just curl up on a roof and have a nap.”

The fishing pole twitches again. _Something_ is nibbling at the bait. Zolf waits.

“You _did_ get my letter, right?” Sasha asks. “I dreamt you did, but I’ve had weird dreams about the lot of you since I died, and I don’t know how much of it actually happened. Like, there was this… what’s the word Hamid uses? Robot? There was a robot thing made out of a pipe organ, had a brain in it like Mr. Ceiling, except just the one brain. And a bunch of, like, baby dragons? But not shiny like Hamid. Some of them seem to follow him around?”

“Kobolds,” Zolf says. The line jerks and he slowly starts reeling it in. “They got dragon blood in them. And they weren’t kids, they’re just small.”

“Huh. So that was real. And the giant bear? And the elf who can turn into stuff and fly and throw bombs? They seemed pretty cool.”

“Half-elf,” Zolf says distractedly. The fish on the end of his hook, silver scales flashing in the sun as it thrashes, is young, too small for eating. He gently removes the hook from its mouth, healing it with the tiniest amount of magic before placing it back in the water. “Get bigger,” he tells the fish as it swims away. He glances over at Sasha, then reaches into the bait bucket next to him. “Did you— did you dream about a garden?”

“No,” Sasha says, and Zolf’s shoulders barely have time to slump in disappointment before she continues. “I was there. There were a lot of people there though, everyone talking all at once, and you know me and crowds. Climbed up a tree just to get a bit of breathing room. I saw you. You were walking with someone… I didn’t want to interrupt.”

Zolf thinks back to the garden, the feeling of his brother’s unspoken forgiveness as heavy on his heart as rockfall. Would he have been more comforted by Sasha’s presence instead, or would the weight of everything he hadn’t been able to say to her been just as heavy? He baits his hook instead of thinking about it further. “Sasha,” he says as he casts the line into the water.

“Yeah?”

“What? No, I—“ He shakes off the feeling that the dream is repeating. “It’s an old fishing superstition. You— you name your bait after someone you care about, right? And if that person cares about you too, you’ll catch what you’re after.” He feels the back of his neck getting hot and thinks it’s terribly unfair that even in dreams he can blush. “I started doing it— after I left. Guess it’s just habit now.”

“Huh.” Sasha looks at Zolf, then out at the water. “You try that with anyone else’s name?”

“Hamid,” Zolf admits. He doesn’t tell her he tried it with Wilde’s name once, after about a year working together, and immediately caught the biggest damn bass he’d ever seen. He’d been so flustered at the time that he hadn’t tried it again. “Always caught more fish using your name though.”

“Huh,” Sasha says again. “Good. That’s good.” There’s a touch of pride in her tone.

Zolf waits for her to ask if he had really cared about her that much, but the question doesn’t come. There’s just bird song overhead and the quiet sound of water lapping at the riverbank.

“We did get your letter,” Zolf says, answering the question that had almost gone forgotten.

“I wasn’t sure you would,” Sasha says quietly. “Didn’t stop me from writing it though. I just… had to let you know. What happened. That I was….” She shifts slightly, sighing. “It’s not something I chose. I didn’t _want_ to be lost, or to lose all of you. But I ended up with more than I ever thought I would get. I had a home and a _life_ , and yeah it wasn’t perfect, it was painful and complicated and sad sometimes, but that wasn’t all there was. I got to be happy too. I got to _save_ people, save _kids_ , make sure they got a better start than I did, watch them grow up and teach _their_ kids the things I had taught them. I got to grow _old_.” Sasha chuckles dryly. “Could have done without bits of that. Joints going all stiff.”

“Sasha, I—“ Zolf turns his head, catches the shine of tears in her eyes. He wants to tell her how proud he is of her. He wants to tell her about the letter he wrote but never sent, the one that was one part crossed out sentences and two parts apologies for having to leave the way he did. Instead, he grunts in surprise as something tugs hard enough at his line to almost jerk the pole from his hands.

Sasha lets out an exasperated breath and swipes a sleeve across her eyes. “Well don’t let it get away!” She says indignantly, and only then does Zolf turn his attention back to the water and the wildly jerking line. He stands to get better leverage and feels more than sees Sasha stand as well, moving behind him, a hand on his shoulder to steady him as he fights to reel in the fish. More than once he thinks the line might break, or maybe even the pole, but the thought of cutting the line never crosses his mind, and in the end his efforts are rewarded as he finally lands the fish on the bank. It’s an eel, long and fat and black as a shadow with a silver underbelly, and it thrashes so hard that it almost ends up back in the water. It’s Sasha who manages to grab it and hold its head while Zolf tries to get the hook out.

“Oh that’s a nice one,” Sasha says, grinning, her eyes bright with excitement. “What do you think, Zolf? Fried eel? Eel quiche?”

Zolf chuckles and deposits the eel into the moss lined wicker basket that holds the rest of the fish he’s caught. “If I catch another one, I could make both,” he says, and it doesn’t matter that this is a dream, that the eel won’t be among the day’s catch when he wakes up.

“Can I try?”

“Do you know how?” Zolf asks as he immediately hands over the fishing pole.

“I mean, I’ve been watching you,” Sasha says. “You just put the bait on the hook and—“ She makes a flinging motion with her arm. “And then you’re fishing.”

“Just don’t chuck the pole into the river,” he says. “Try to aim for that log over there, in the shadows. It’s the kind of place eels hide during the day.”

“Right,” she says, placing the bait on the hook. “Zolf.”

“What?”

“Just naming my bait,” Sasha says quietly. “After someone I care about.”

———

Zolf wakes with a smile, then a wince at the crick in his neck and the cramp in his shoulders from falling asleep against a tree. He stretches briefly, looking up towards the sky. The sun is only just beginning to set, dying the sky and the water in a myriad of colors, orange and red and pink. He’s sure that any minute now, Oscar’s going to come out of the house and check up on him, make sure he hasn’t fallen in.

Zolf checks the basket he’s stored his fish in, his dream still clear in his memory. There aren’t any eels in there, and he can’t help but laugh a little at himself for checking. It would have been nice. Improbable, unlikely, but nice. He picks up his fishing pole, baits his hook, and stands. He’s got a bit of time before it gets dark, and he _had_ told Sasha there’d be fried eel and eel quiche at dinner tomorrow, hadn’t he? He’d hate for her to dream about dinner, with everyone gathered together, and not see eel on the table.

“Sasha,” Zolf says quietly, and casts his line into the water.

**Author's Note:**

> Full disclosure: I have no idea if this is an actual factual fishing superstition. Fannibals will probably recognize the idea from Hannibal, season two, episode four, "Takiawase," (Fun fact that episode also inspired my Corruption!Martin fic, "Love Dripping Golden From A Honeycomb Heart.") The idea for doing *something* with the concept has literally been sitting in my WIP folder since about April last year, and was originally going to be a Zoscar fic of some flavor. Then I was doing inventory at a boating/fishing supplies place last week and thought, "Right, I had a fishing fic I was going to do. What if... Zolf and Sasha though." It seemed like the perfect fit.
> 
> I’m [angel-ascending](http://angel-ascending.tumblr.com) over on Tumblr and [angel_in_ink](http://twitter.com/angel_in_ink) over on Twitter if y’all want to stop by and say hi!


End file.
